Sarge's Time RvB oneshot BETA
by Tom Phan
Summary: Sarge explains his actions in the later episodes of RvB revelations, along with some background. hoping for constructive criticism to turn this into a better work. Will repost if I get enough criticisms to fix some of the problems I haven't been able see.


Sarge One Shot

_Taking place right before and after Sarge's speech, this is my response (and first post) to literally one of my favorite scenes, of all time. I can summarize some of my own excuses at the end, but this is mostly to just let us all see hw the most hardcore soldier can get a little bit more crazy. This is also heavily inspired and in response to __**Lex C**__'s one-shot "Drop from the Sky", a well written page that I would suggest you read now, before my own. Don't worry it is not noobish. Also, well done man, few fanfic authors actually inspired me to write even these couple pages._

_And yes, I don't own RVB. But I wish I did. Then I could have more awesome things in the series. Vote Tom for Diretcor!_

Sarge walked away from his men; shotgun still shouldered, wishing for a reason to fire it. He had never been picky about what, and had even made his name reach the Helljumpers because of his trigger finger. It was with only great control, such that he had never been good at before meeting Griff, to pull his fingers off the shotguns trigger.

He had always known that Red team was not the real thing. He had been part of the real men, lead a squad of men in on Reach only to have the entire group slaughtered in the air, or suffering from burns that pulled them out of service. But command didn't realize, war wasn't over there. He stayed in, pulled out of his company sure, but they had told him that they had reassigned him to lead some soldiers in an anti-insurrectionist base on one of the still defended planets. Sure he wasn't as good as he had been but that wasn't anything. Fight was still in him.

But since when had such a similar recruiting line pulled the Blues. He had the recruitment files. Same folder, marked files sitting right next to each other, differing by only a word. He finally shrugged his shoulder onto the back mag-locks, before pounding a fist into the crate in front of him. The indent and pain felt good, let him re-focus his energy on something.

Soon he was bashing the crates about, even removing his gloves so that the pain could better spread into his body. He tried to find other distractions, but his mind had nothing; and he was already going numb to the pain.

"Oh, hey Sarge!" Caboose walked over, his joy enough to make Sarge's glare seem to wilt. "You must be building a new fort!"

His eyes glanced, and he saw a pattern now. He had pushed the crates into a wall, even made crates to help funnel troops down into a crossfire that he could use to cut-down a squad of men before they could halt the momentum. "Sure, Why don't you help me here? I need one of those cement blocks. Then you can work on blue base."

"Sure!"

Little Rascal. He was as much his son as the rest of Red team. His wife had always said he would make a good father. Maybe that's why he had always led. He couldn't let her be wrong. He continued to push the blocks into place, including a turret into the crossfire corridor.

"Uh that's good." Caboose had a knack for the front barriers. "Uh maybe a little to the left."

"What is all this?" Griff had arrived. Fine.

"Oh, This is new red base. Welcome." Let caboose talk for now, what did he care about that stupid command structure anymore.

"When did you build this?" Simmons to.

"Oh I didn't build this. Your Sergeant did!"

"What? He built this? When?" Griff, always asking the wrong questions.

"Oh, just now."

"He walked out of the room like ten seconds ago!"

"Oh, he got sad about something; so he's making a red base here. And I am helping. I am great at building forts. See; I already the blue base! …Ours has blankets."

"Go away!" He was tired of this.

"Sarge, what is all this?"

"Simmons, didn't you hear? We're cannon fodder for practice. Well if I'm the leader of junk, I may as well have a base made out of junk. Pretty appropriate, right?"

"Looks like shit."

"That was rhetorical dirtbag."

"Well sir, I think that this is an excellent strategy, the blues will never…"

"The Blues? Simmons, don't you get it yet. Griff was right all along."

"Thank you sir."

"Don't call me that anymore."

"Sarge, this is one lie after another. We don't know…"

"Oh we know. I know. You want to fool yourself go ahead."

"Your just upset sir."

"Don't call me that."

"Call you what?"

"Sir. From now on call me by name, Sarge." It's true! He had his name changed after the accident. Some alien spy had obviously planted the one on file! "Or Bristol. I'm not in charge anymore. I Quit." He walked away. Talking done as far as he was concerned.

Sarge collapsed finally at the jeep. He always had went to work when he was confused. After the last drop he had literally been dragged back into the hospital bed, to end his repetitive weapons cleaning, or weight lifting (the tazer actually hurt that time), or the time when he had been working on trying to get the stupid AI, Phyllis, to let him finally get the damn program downloaded for using, the shotgun rounds he had designed.

His wife used to joke about it. Said he was a gear head, who should have been a mechanic, instead of a farmer and militiaman. Harvest was past him though, and he had chosen the third path, as a soldier of the UNSC.

Caboose was yelling now. God, he wished the brat would shut up. Let an old man finally have his peace and quiet before he died, who cared by what? He paused finally at the word beacon. He knew what it was like to be dying with seemingly no one to find that stupid beacon, constantly beeping in an ear that had already decided to die. He remembered those seconds of screaming and broken chute, and every shred of hope died away with those awful plasma shots, shots that never even burned his body. He never received the actual psychological reports they did on him. But now he knew. Knew why they had cast him aside.

Fear of heights had squat to do with it.

Screw them; they could go to fucking hell. Time to play hero one last time. Who knew, maybe he would actually have a chance to kill again.

"Cowboy up Caboose, I'm coming with you."

"What?" responded Griff

"I said, I'm helping him."

"Who, the Blue guy? Why in the hell would you help a blue for no reason?"

"We'll need some weapons. How'd your weapons test go Simmons?"

Simmons pulled this reply out in exasperation. He never had luck when it came to these assignments. "About as well as you'd think."

"Hm that's to bad."

"Well I'm not coming, and you can't make me. You quit remember?" I don't take orders from you anymore; and besides, this whole command structure thing was bullshit anyways. We all know that now." Here it goes, Sarge responded in his head.

"I'm not telling you to go, I'm not even asking."

"Your not?"

"Nope, I'm going. That's it. You want to come, c'mon. But I won't expect you to. Simmons would probably tell you statistically some of us will probably die."

"All of us."

"All of us will probably die. But that's not what's important. Let me ask you two a question: Have you ever wondered why we're here?"

Griff and Simmons remembered it, he could tell inn their shared look. Good. Now they deserve an answer "Um, it does seem to be one of life's great mysteries."

"No, I mean You. What are You doing here? You always act like you want to quit, but hell; you could have quit whenever you wanted. No one would have stopped you. So why are you here?"

He turned now, facing Simmons. "And you, Simmons."

"Me?" Betcha thought I wouldn't call you out?

"You say you want to be in charge. They would have given you your own squad a dozen times over. You know it, and I know it. But your still here. And you Tucker, much as I hate to admit it, your actually good at being a soldier."

"I am?"

"I know you like to make your rude comments every now and then and pretend that it all doesn't matter. But an entire alien race chose you to be their hero. So why are you here? And Caboose…uh…it's good to see you."

"Thanks. I'm really enjoying the speech so far."

"Maybe your all here, because this is the only place you fit in. Maybe you're here because you have nowhere else to go. Maybe you're all here because, deep down, you want to be here, reason doesn't matter, what matters is that you're here. For all we know, Tex and Church are dead. That means that we're the only ones who know what happened. The only ones who can prevent them from covering it up."

"Way I figure it, these freelancer guys will use us, take us away from our families. And send us throughout the whole dang galaxy just to see if their agents are ready for the big fight. Well, I'm just interested in showing them exactly what a big fight is all about. Time to clean the slate."

"So I'm not ordering you to go. I ain't even asking. You do what you gotta do Private Griff."

Sigh "I'll go get my car keys."

"Ah, all right then!" This battle was won. Now for the real final fight.

Anyways, the pattern was wrong. This base was for an assault, not a massacre. Charge through with turrets for cover fire. He knew plenty of time his squads had charged from worse. Back with the old team, they would have massacred the real way. Shotguns in hand, one liners ready, and bloodied corpses to pad the rest of the run.

The pelican was good. Kept in pristine condition really, and probably never driven after it was parked in the lonely landing bay. This was good. He always had believed that cleaned equipment should get muddied the first time you use them. The other times just weren't acceptable. He wanted to keep with that tradition if he up-chucked over the window."

His fear of heights had been bad for years now. Even in a craft designed to carry troops into and out of space, he always felt like he would be crashing again. He never let it on when possible, but command must have known. Every time they ordered the pelican's pilots to close the space doors, letting him sit in the dark and try to not remember his own crash.

This time he rode in the front, where hopefully he could stop Griff from killing them all. Honestly, the odds were highest that he would die in this flight more than any other; but who cared? Odds stated he should be dead now from jamming the shotgun. Heh. Would be ironic.

"Griff! Land us right there." His hand pointing towards where the pelican could take the Meta's blows for them.

"Land, right, That's when you hit the ground without crashing, right?" Danggit.

The crash was imminent, and he brace as well as he could. Old training he long since thought forgotten kicking in, grabbing on to hand holds in front of the window to catch the other whitless fools who had just stood there.

"Is it possible for a _cyborg, robot, Ai-infested_ to shit his pants? Because I think I just did."

The conversations were useless, , and Wash needed time. Sarge had seen the best of the best fighters, Wash was just one of the best. The Meta on the other hand…he was much higher up there; even if only in sheer veracity. "And I was afraid we wouldn't get to kick a little ass today. Come on fellas." Today is a good day to die.

The charge felt good, his feet pounding into the ground as he led the Blood Gulch crew over. None of them could land the blows right, each only darting in with the intent of a single strike they had been taught could sop the fight. He knew better, trying to use the Shotgun to break the armor shields. Only problem was Griff's whiny ass in his way. The Meta grabbed the useless bear-hugger and tossed him aside; letting him fire off a shot that just barely missed the head. But right before he could pull off another the beast grabbed his ankle, before throwing him into the others.

"Wash, come on. We need help."

"I can't. I'm done. Here take this, you know what to do."

Sarge looked at Wash's gift and smiled. Sometimes shotguns and fists weren't the only way to go.

Tucker was tossed out of the way and he turned, pulling his shotgun up into a smooth shot. To far away to kill, but far more accurate than he had been able to manage since the crash. "Come here you big sonofabitch." He pulled, before managing another shot, the two warriors steadily coming closer to each other. Another, his shields flaring more harshly than the last times. The fourth, he needed no plead. He extended his arm for the last one, using the pistol grip to reach out for the last shot. Meta, grabbed his arm instead and twisted it for a disarm; the shot going wild and failing to even scratch the failing armor. Meta's free arm went for a chokehold; cutting off much needed oxygen, more so than the smoke and fire had when last he screamed.

"Hey Griff. I lost my shotgun. What'll I do without my shotgun? ...Shotgun dammit!" message received. "Hey Meta, settle a bit would you? Does that thing kinda look like a big cat to you?"

It would end now. Griff and Simmons already had the torn up warthog, it's tow hook firmly planted in the Meta's armor, at the edge of the cliff. One last shove and the two would go over. Both insane men allowed to rest finally. The Meta had different plans though; letting Sarge go to better try and grip the slippery ice and snow he now slid rapidly across. One last-ditch effort led to Griff's ankle being grabbed, and now the two went over the edge together. Simmons tried to hold on, but he had never had the upper body strength enough to lift Griff up; and Griff merely cried his name as he went over cliff to his doom. So fucking sad.

"He's gone." Managed Simmons as the cry finished.

"Yes," Began Sarge. "Griff is dead. It's a sad day. But he died as he lived, lying on his belly, trying to get someone else to do his work or him. He will be missed. 'Till we get a replacement. Then forgotten immediately."

"I can't believe he's gone."

"You know, sometimes in movies, when people fall over the cliff, they aren't really dead. They're just hanging on a tree branch or something." Tucker spoke up hopefully.

"No, he's definitely dead."

"Maybe we should look; just in case." Simmons interjected.

"I think looking would get our hopes up. Griff wouldn't like that. Griff would want our expectations to be as low as possible. So let us honor him by not looking. Then have a nice lunch, I'm thinking Monte Christo sandwiches."

"Are you sure? I could just peek right over the edge."

"Sounds like a waste of time."

"Wouldn't even take a second."

"Nah…"

"Oh for gods-sake just look over the damn edge! I can't hold on for much longer!"

"Griff!"

"Dangling on the job again I see. Dang nab it I hate cliff hangers."

"Oh just pick me up."

Well Red team was complete once more. And he wasn't dead. Or Griff. Or a blue for that matter. This day hadn't turned out all that successful after all. Oh well. Now to just get that large land animal to rodeo back home. Or start working on the story for the investigation team. Then they could jack a ride from them. Sounded good to him.

Whoever said being insane was why he acted strange? He sure as hell hadn't. Insane just through off his aim.

_So to explain some big topics:_

_He eventually leads his ODST squad to Reach, only to be shot out of the sky by the covenant. After some seriously mind-boggling action he goes literally insane. This leads to pretty much everything he does in RVB. The Councilor personally redirected the similarly mind-boggling pysch-report into a statement that Sarge had an extreme fear of heights; before sticking him in a box canyon, with a distinct lack of anything over ten feet high that you could jump off. The cliffs were ramped._

_Also, the whole Red-Blue thing comes down to Propaganda used on the proven-stupid soldiers sent to the freelancers. They were given the "official' story, stating that the opposing color were the insurrectionists trying to set up bases in strange locations to help build up even larger power._

_Also long conversations that seem straight from the episodes are straight from the episode. Took most of the time I would have spent writing other stuff._

_I know a lot of this is blunt, but I figure if you read through the whole thing you deserve a straight answer to any questions. Thanks for any reviews in advance. If I receive enough helpful ones, I will repost this to a beta-tested version, for more a concise viewing._


End file.
